Live Review: West Australian Symphony Orchestra

The Perth Convention Centre was transformed into Middle Earth over the weekend as the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) performed Howard Shore's Academy Award-winning score to The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers.

Enthusiastic fans – some taking the 'cosplay' route – filled the Riverside Theatre for the event, which proved to be a stellar follow-up to the success of last year's The Fellowship Of The Ring.

The musical strength in the second instalment of JRR Tolkien's epic trilogy lies in its diversity. Darker and more ominous than the first, the deep brass, double basses and eerie choral form a leitmotif continually revisited to represent the looming threat of Mordor. The fact that the Fellowship has split creates the opportunity for complexity as the plot follows different characters into different places, allowing the score room for movement and interaction. Led by conductor Shih-Hung Young, WASO moved seamlessly through the Celtic-infused theme of Théoden and his kingdom of Rohan into the ethereal strings and haunting voices of the Elves, the 5/4 rhythmic war drums of the Orcs, then back into the iconic Shire theme, often referenced when a semblance of hope was needed.

The entire film played on the big screen at the back of the stage, providing just a minor distraction to performers who occasionally broke their stoicism to appreciate the comic relief of Gimli and Legolas. Subtitles were displayed so the live music could really shine through, but the loss of non-verbal diegetic sounds was on occasion slightly distracting – though in reality, it's a small trade-off for such a massive endeavour. Unsurprisingly, WASO are quite confident in their successes, having already announced pre-sale tickets to The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, but just as the films made us wait a year between releases, so too shall WASO.